Bilbao, Spain — After surviving ten days of torture in Israeli custody, activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla returned to Spain on Saturday only to be met with batons and arrests by Basque police at Bilbao airport. Four people were detained. Some were still wearing their prison clothes.

The message from the Spanish state could not have been clearer: solidarity with Palestine has a limit, and that limit is enforced at gunpoint.

"They Turned a Celebration Into a Nightmare"

Six members of the Basque delegation of the Global Sumud Flotilla landed at Loiu Airport around 2:00 PM local time. Supporters, family members, and journalists had been waiting since 11:00 AM. The activists' return was delayed by a day because two members required hospitalization for injuries sustained during their abduction by Israeli forces — injuries the Basque government's own delegation described as "resulting from the violence suffered during the kidnapping by Zionist repression forces."

The activists posed for photographs in the arrivals hall. A supporter attempted to cross a security barrier to greet the group. A Basque police officer blocked them. Within seconds, the Ertzaintza — the regional police force — deployed batons, charging directly into a crowd of people who had spent the previous week being tortured on an Israeli prison ship.

The result: four arrests — two flotilla members, two supporters — charged with "serious disobedience, resistance, and assault on a law enforcement officer." Three were released hours later pending judicial summons.

Luka Remiro, a flotilla member, condemned the police response in visceral terms:

"We spent 72 hours in the hands of the Zionists, who tortured us in every way possible. Some came back with broken ribs, shattered shoulders. And the first thing they do is beat us again — at a moment of celebration."

What Israel Did to Them

To understand what happened at Bilbao, you need to understand what these activists survived to get there.

On April 30, the Israeli military intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters — 250 nautical miles from the coast of Gaza. More than 430 activists from over 40 countries were aboard 54 vessels carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians under siege. Israeli forces boarded the ships at gunpoint and forced the activists onto military "prison ships."

What followed was a systematic campaign of abuse, documented through testimony and verified by Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel:

• Beatings and physical assault: Activists were repeatedly punched, kicked, and struck. Multiple detainees suffered broken ribs. One was treated for a punctured lung.
• Taser torture: Soldiers fired stun guns at detainees' faces and heads, causing muscle spasms. One activist described soldiers forming a "tunnel of terror" where detainees were electrocuted as they passed through.
• Unknown injections: Several activists were injected with unidentified substances. Hundreds underwent medical testing in Istanbul to determine what they were given.

Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir holding Israeli flag and smiling while rows of detained flotilla activists kneel on the ground with hands bound behind their backs at Ashdod port.

• Sexual violence: The flotilla coalition confirmed at least 15 incidents of sexual assault, including rape, in Israeli custody. Adalah reported that some survivors chose not to go public out of fear of retaliation while still detained.
• Sleep deprivation and psychological torture: Detainees were kept awake for days — moved from cell to cell, forced to their knees for hours with the Israeli national anthem playing on loop, denied food, toilet paper, and adequate water. Activists reported receiving five liters of water for more than 30 people.
• Zip ties so tight they caused permanent numbness. Multiple detainees lost circulation in their hands and fingers.
• Crowded containers: Approximately 60 detainees were packed into cargo containers designed for freight, forced to sleep in fetal positions with their heads against metal walls.
• Ben-Gvir's photo op: National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the detention facility to pose for photographs with bound, kneeling detainees — parading his cruelty for his political base while soldiers' families took selfies with the captives.

Israel acknowledged no wrongdoing. No charges were filed against any activist. They were all deported.

Spain's Two Faces

Here is where the hypocrisy of the Spanish government becomes impossible to ignore.

When Israel seized the flotilla and detained Spanish-Swedish national Saif Abukeshek and Brazilian Thiago Ávila, Spain's foreign ministry was outraged. Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares called it "kidnapping." Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez demanded their immediate release. Spain summoned Israel's chargé d'affaires in Madrid. Sánchez's government condemned the treatment as "monstrous" and "inhumane."

Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun met the Barcelona delegation at El Prat airport on Saturday and publicly called for the National Court Prosecutor's Office to open an investigation into Israel for torture of Spanish citizens.

Spain, in other words, had no problem calling out Israeli violence when the cameras were pointed at Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir.

But when their own police beat the same victims — people still wearing the clothes they were tortured in — the machinery of the state pivoted from condemnation to cover-up. The Basque Security Department announced an internal investigation into whether officers' use of force "complied with active protocols." The Sipe police union issued a statement defending the Ertzaintza and dismissing video evidence as "partial recordings circulated on social media."

This is the pattern. Western governments will condemn human rights abuses committed abroad — carefully, with diplomatic language that costs them nothing — and then replicate those same abuses at home when the targets are their own citizens demanding justice for Palestine.

The Far-Right Israel Connection

Spain's right-wing opposition has been explicitly aligned with Israel throughout this. The far-right Vox party — which has cultivated formal ties with the Israeli government since 2025 — has been conspicuously silent about the detention of Spanish nationals by Israel. Vox leader Santiago Abascal personally met with Benjamin Netanyahu during Spain's recognition of Palestine, a diplomatic handshake arranged to signal to Tel Aviv that not all of Spain had gone rogue.

Freed Global Sumud Flotilla activists receiving medical assistance at Istanbul Airport after release from Israeli detention. One person lies on a stretcher.

The conservative Popular Party (PP), which governs in coalition with Vox in multiple regions, has also refused to condemn Israel's abduction of the flotilla or the treatment of Spanish citizens. Culture Minister Urtasun singled out PP and Vox for their "complete silence on the detention of Spanish nationals."

EH Bildu, the Basque pro-independence left party, condemned the police violence at Bilbao airport: "The violence exercised against an action that symbolizes solidarity and the defense of human rights has no justification. It is not acceptable to beat and detain people in Euskal Herria who were kidnapped by Israel."

Podemos secretary general Ione Belarra called the incident "intolerable."

Israel's Foreign Ministry, in a display of breathtaking audacity, shared video of the Bilbao clashes on social media and demanded "an explanation from the Spanish government regarding its treatment of the flotilla anarchists." The state that tortured these people for a week — that sexually assaulted them, tasered them, injected them with unknown chemicals, and paraded them before a far-right minister for photographs — wants an explanation from Spain about police batons.

The EU Association Agreement That Refuses to Die

The European Union's association agreement with Israel — a trade and diplomatic framework that grants Israel preferential access to European markets — remains in effect despite Spain's formal request for its suspension. The agreement has survived more than 80,000 Palestinian deaths, the flattening of Gaza's infrastructure, the systematic targeting of journalists, and now the torture of EU citizens carrying humanitarian aid.

Minister Urtasun called the continued existence of the agreement "a disgrace." The left-wing Sumar coalition and allies like EH Bildu and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya have pushed Sánchez to adopt stronger measures. Jacobin reported that the Sánchez government has been "studying all possible measures" regarding Israel for the flotilla attack — without actually taking any.

This is the currency of European "concern": strongly worded statements, diplomatic summonses, and internal investigations that produce nothing — all while the arms flow, the trade agreements hold, and the victims are beaten twice — once by the state that tortured them, and once by the state that condemned it.

The Activists Keep Going

Despite everything — the Israeli torture, the Spanish police batons, the EU's complicity, the silence of the right — the activists are not stopping.

Mi Hoa Lee, speaking at Barcelona airport, laid it out: "We were intercepted, boarded, tortured, kidnapped, humiliated, and deported. The escalation of violence was abysmal."

Ariadna Masmitjà demanded the EU break relations with Israel entirely: "Netanyahu has an arrest warrant. All relations with that state should be severed."

And Luka Remiro, nursing injuries from both Israeli interrogators and Spanish police at Bilbao, put it simply: "They turned a celebration into shit."

No, Luka. Spain and Israel did that together.

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The Global Sumud Flotilla coalition has called for sustained international pressure on Israel over the treatment of detainees. The Basque regional parliament's Security Committee has scheduled hearings for Tuesday. Three of the four arrested activists have been released pending judicial proceedings.